OCLS – Why Oculus Jumped Over 145% Today

Oculus stock holders were encouraged by an FDA clearance

Oculus Innovative Sciences (OCLS) is one of those small cap stocks that most folks haven’t heard of — until, that is, it makes a breakout move like OCLS stock did today.

In Wednesday’s trading, OCLS stock exploded over 145%. Yes, shares of Oculus more than doubled in one day alone. A share of OCL stock went for $2.30 or so as of yesterday’s close … and is worth over $5.70 now.

Of course, small cap stocks like Oculus are known for being especially volatile. And for proof of just how up-and-down 2013 has been for OCLS stock holders, consider this: Even after doubling, OCLS stock is still more than 25% off its 52-week high.

What Sent OCLS Stock Higher

The big swings of Oculus stock aside, most folks — whether they generally follow small cap stocks or not — simply want to know the answer to an obvious question: What the heck happened? Why were investors clamoring to get their hands of OCLS stock today?

Well, the big-time catalyst for OCLS stock was a new clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for one of its products. Oculus — which designs, manufactures and markets prescription and non-prescription products in 27 countries — got clearance for a scar management gel.

Oculus says it plans to commercialize the product in the first half of 2014, which could naturally boost OCLS stock.

OCLS stock investors were likely encouraged by the “scar treatment market” referenced in the Oculus press release. According to the release, “62 million scars are formed each year in the United States … and about 93 million people in the United States suffering from scars, out of which about 169 million scars can be characterized as hypertrophic (raised) and keloid (red colored) scars.”

Other small cap stocks in the pharma space also posted big jumps on Wednesday, although none topped the explosion in OCLS stock. A few notable movers included Arca Biopharma (ABIO), Oncomed Pharmaceuticals (OMED), Immunomedics (IMMU) and Merrimack Pharmaceuticals (MACK).

ABIO stock jumped over 43%, while OMED stock and IMMU stock each gained just under 8%. Finally, MACK stock tacked on nearly 7%.

Of the biggest movers in the world of pharma-related small caps stocks, only OMED stock, IMMU stock and OCLS stock are actually in the red year-to-date. In fact, Immunomedics is up over 64% since Jan. 1 — more than double the gain of Oculus over the same time period despite today’s big-time jump.

As of this writing, Robert Martin did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.